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Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Jacob Sullum :: Townhall.com Columnist
The Obstinate Obstetrician
by Jacob Sullum
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Frustrated by Tom Coburn's "unprecedented obstructionism," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cobbled together a "Tomnibus" of 35 bills with "broad -- virtually unanimous -- bipartisan support" that Coburn had blocked. On Monday, the Oklahoma Republican blocked them again.

Unable to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome Coburn's opposition, Reid castigated the Republicans who had sided with the obstreperous obstetrician. "You go home and explain to the next person you see in a wheelchair, 'I voted against you because Harry Reid was being a tyrannical guy in the Senate,'" the Nevada Democrat said. He also accused the Republicans of voting against victims of stroke, Lou Gehrig's disease, postpartum depression and child pornography.

"I have never been a bully," Reid insisted while caricaturing his opponents as cripple kickers, mother haters and molester lovers. Perhaps he really believes that, just as he really believes he is anything but "a tyrannical guy." Spending other people's money on good causes makes you automatically virtuous, which is part of its appeal. If nothing else, Coburn has shown it is possible to resist the tyranny of good intentions.

"Mr. Coburn's approach is problematic when it comes to the mechanics of the Senate," The New York Times explains, "because most of the chamber's work gets done by what is known as unanimous consent, an agreement among all parties to let a bill pass without a fight." In other words, Coburn has the bad manners to demand that the "world's greatest deliberative body" deliberate.

It's not hard to see why Reid wants to avoid that. Although he dubbed his spending package the Advancing America's Priorities Act, the one thing it emphatically does not do is set priorities.

Is postpartum depression a bad thing? Sure it is. Then let's pass a law that "aims to eradicate the devastating effects of postpartum depression on American families." And let's call it the MOTHERS Act, even though MOTHERS is not, strictly speaking, the correct acronym for Mom's Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression.

Are flowers nice? Of course they are. So let's pay for a new greenhouse at the Smithsonian to house its orchid collection. Continued...
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About The Author
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a contributing columnist on Townhall.com.
 
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(28 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Aug 1, 2008 - 8:19 AM EST
Dr. Tom Coburn: Breast cancer action
Dr. Tom Coburn might be first commended for previously blocking in the U.S. Senate the advocacy-shaped “Priority #3: Enactment of the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act (S.757 / H.R.2231),” of August 30, 2008, and cosponsored by the today’s Senate Majority Leader. Web: http://medicaljobs.com/healthcare-jobs/f38/arne-n-gjorgov- u-s-senate-35022.html .
Although “no cause of the disease has been determined,” as mentioned, the research strategy of the failed Act for protection against breast cancer could officially be (mis)directed towards the already discarded links of toxins and chemicals in the living / working environment of women along with other spurious risk factors to the breast cancer epidemic, which deviation in the research time and funds could add to the escalation of the extent of the current breast cancer contingency rather than to help its solution and elimination.

As a medical professional with experience in both the field of women’s ill health (breast cancer) and the source of life (babies), Sen. Tom Coburn, MD, is in an extraordinary position to observe, witness and act about the devastating and carcinogenic effects of the misconceived, deadly, and mass CONDOMIZATION of women’s sexuality in the mainstream population(s), resulting in (documented) both current breast cancer epidemic in American wives / mothers and rampant anorexia-bulimia disorders in daughters, and in the (observed) widespread osteoporosis impairments in mature women / grandmas. The unique contribution of Sen. Tom Coburn is anticipated in elimination (‘eradication’) of the current, excess breast cancer epidemic to the levels of sporadic cases of the disease(s) in the community.

Arne N. Gjorgov, M.D., Ph.D. (UNC-SPH, Chapel Hill, NC)
Author of “Barrier Contraception and Breast Cancer,” 1980: x+164
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Reply # 2
Date: Jul 31, 2008 - 3:08 PM EST
Reid's claim never to have been
a bully sounds a lot like a hypothetical claim by Martin Webster of never having been a racist.

(edit: Webster was the founder of UK's National Front, which transmogrified eventually to British National Party; he had actually made the comment, "we don't ADMIT to being racist, we PROCLAIM it" to media)
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